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A video interview with

Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander, an award-winning poet and author, writes picture books for children and cross-genre books for teens. The Crossover — his basketball-concrete poetry-hiphop mashup — was awarded the 2015 Newbery Medal. Alexander is also the creator of the in-school Book-in-a-Day writing and publishing workshop.

Biography

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and New York Times bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, the NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, and the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. His other works include the award-winning children’s picture book Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, optioned as a children’s television show, and He Said, She Said, a YA novel.

Alexander believes that poetry can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his Book-in-a-Day literacy program which has created more than 3,000 student authors at 69 schools across the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. A regular speaker and workshop presenter at conferences in the U.S., he also travels the world planting seeds of literary love (Brazil, Italy, France, and Turkey).

Alexander has also led a delegation of 20 writers and activists to Ghana, where they delivered books, built a library, and provided literacy professional development to 300 teachers, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an International literacy program he co-founded. In 2015, Alexander served as Bank Street College of Education’s first writer-in-residence.